


A Thunderstorm

by RedTeamShark



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: "2 AM in a diner" AU, Additional Characters Mentioned, Agent Carolina - Freeform, Agent Connecticut - Freeform, Agent Maine - Freeform, Agent North Dakota - Freeform, Agent York - Freeform, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Isolation, Lavernius Tucker - Freeform, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-25 01:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12024987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: “You ever lose someone so close to you, they felt like part of you?”--Southington "2AM in a diner" type AU.





	A Thunderstorm

Once upon a time you probably had something to do with your life between the hours of 10pm and 5am. Once upon a time you probably had goals, or at least dreams. Maybe friends. Maybe just a reason to be asleep at the same time the rest of the world was asleep.

Once upon a time you’re almost positive that you didn’t drink black coffee and read trashy sci-fi novels in the latest hours of night and earliest hours of morning, constant smear of dark circles under your eyes, being paid in pocket change to sit in an empty diner and act as cook and waiter if anyone came stumbling in.

On the plus side, no one has come stumbling in in a very long time.

(There used to be a boy–a man, whatever–who said he was a stripper but you’re pretty sure he was actually a whore and he used to come in and eat plates of your shitty pancakes after the bars closed, used to scroll through his phone laughing and eating more pancakes and sometimes chatting with you until one day he stopped showing up at ungodly hours of the nightmorning and one day after that you stopped looking for him to come bursting through the doors like midnight sun with dark skin and a quick laugh.)

So you sit and you drink coffee, you read shitty books or play shitty handheld video games or mod your extensive collection of NERF guns (it’s a hobby, everyone has a fucking hobby, even if you don’t remember the last time you actually went out and played with the things). You watch the clock circle around seven times alone, only human contact as York and Carolina leave when you come in, as Connie and Maine arrive when you go home. Go home to sit alone and drink black coffee and stare into space until it seems reasonable to fall asleep.

There are dark circles under your eyes and you don’t know if your voice still actually works or not but it’s not like you’re in a hurry to test it.

Then there’s the thunderstorm and the woman who walks in from the rain soaked to the bone, looking pissed, make-up streaming down her face. The woman who sits at the counter and says two words to you.

“Coffee. Black.”

For a moment you wonder if this is it, if you’ve gone nuts from the boredom, the monotony, the fact that your seven hour shift is completely devoid of any life but yourself. Is she a figment of your imagination, some suppressed desire with blonde hair and a slightly pinched, very pissed off face that your mind has created just so you’re not so fucking alone? Or is she real, the first human contact you’ve had during your nightmorning shift since… whenever?

Either way, you should probably get her a cup of coffee.

She doesn’t acknowledge you as she sits and glares at the sheeting rain, doesn’t say another word. Her exit is as abrupt as her entrance, pushing out the door when the rain stops. The only evidence that she was even there is the small puddle of cold coffee in the bottom of the mug and the much larger puddle of icy cold water under the seat she was in.

She didn’t even fucking pay for the coffee.

You forget her by the next day, mind occupied with… well, no, you may as well tell the truth. You wonder about her for a few days, wonder if you’ve found another nightmorning companion, another midnight sunshine. She didn’t seem like sunshine, seemed instead to match the thunderstorm that brought her in.

You kind of liked that, you think.

Doesn’t change the fact that the bitch didn’t pay for her coffee. Then again, you drink enough coffee on the job that one more cup isn’t going to be noticed.

She comes back during the next big storm, rolls in like thunder and sits down to glare out the window again as lightning flashes and rain pours louder than the rumbling thunder.

At least this time she pays for her fucking coffee.

The pattern becomes established and you try not to think about how your steps don’t seem as slow and plodding when you walk to work in the rain. She’s never spoken more than two words to you, never even seen you as something more than the scenery as far as you can tell and that still doesn’t change the fact that when the little bell over the door chimes sometime between one and three in the morning you get a coffee cup down and fill it without a second thought. The two of you sit in silence and drink your coffee and you pretend to read while she maybe doesn’t pretend to glare out the window.

This time, though, you get her name.

Okay, so you steal a glance at her driver’s license when she pulls out her money, but either way you now know that her name is Erika and her license is from South Dakota and that has to mean something, right?

Maine asks if you’re feeling okay when he comes in to start the grill. You sign back that you’re fine, glad that the only person who seems to have noticed any change in you communicates nonverbally. No need to test if you still have the ability to talk.

It doesn’t rain for two weeks and you want to tear your hair out.

The next storm that rolls through seems to be making up for the dry spell (hah, you’re a comedian who drinks too much black coffee and has too-dark circles under his eyes), sheeting rain, booming thunder, stuttering lightning, hail, the whole nine yards. Before they duck under the umbrella and make the run to their car, Carolina tells you to feel free to lock up and go home if the weather is too bad. She seems to have forgotten that you’d have to walk home in it, that you’d probably be safer locking yourself in the big meat freezer if things got that bad. At least her heart is in the right place.

Erika comes in again and while you’re not surprised, you won’t say that you’re something as pathetic as relieved. That makes you sound too co-dependent on a near-stranger.

Tonight, as the thunder rumbles and the overhead lights flicker, Erika seems different. Her face is drawn, her glare is still turned on the windows and the rain, but her hands move slower, more hesitantly as she pulls her coffee cup to her mouth again and again. You’re almost surprised off your chair when she turns to you, when she opens her mouth and says something besides “coffee. black.”

“You ever lose someone so close to you, they felt like part of you?”

Boyfriend, you think, because she’s just a bit too young for husband. Or maybe she’s not, maybe the nightmorning has screwed up your perception of age completely. It’s not like you look your age anymore.

She’s still looking at you like she expects an answer, so you shake your head mutely. You shake your head and you pour yourself another cup of coffee, pour her another cup. Follow her gaze down to the black liquid, then back up to the window.

She says “I didn’t think so” and she leaves into the roaring storm.

If you weren’t so unsure of your own voice, you’re almost positive you’d call for her to stay.

She asks your name the next time it rains.

She asks your name and your throat closes because when the hell is the last time you actually spoke to another person, anyways? But she’s looking at you expectantly so you take a sip of coffee to try to open your throat and croak out “Washington.” Feel like a fucking moron immediately because that stupid nickname isn’t what you meant to tell her.

“Seriously?”

“That’s what everyone calls me.” Your voice sounds unnatural to your own ears. Holy fuck, how long  _has_ it been since you’ve talked?

“Like the state?”

“I’m from there.”

She hums, thoughtful, then nods. “Okay.” And you top off her coffee when her finger stops tracing the rim of the cup, top off your own and go back to your book.

Your voice starts to sound more natural when you converse with her. You don’t talk about anything deep, like your reasons for being in a diner during the deepest parts of the night. You call her South and she calls you Wash and you talk about books or video games or just sit and stare at your coffees until she leaves and you’re alone again.

Her question lingers in your head but she’s never asked you why you’re there alone all night and you won’t break the code and ask her who she lost. You won’t ask her why the rain drives her into a diner with a stranger at hours when most people want to be surrounded by people that they know.

Maybe she’s like you. Maybe she just doesn’t have anyone anymore.

And maybe one nightmorning she kisses you and maybe you like it enough to kiss her back.

It’s two in the morning in the diner and thunder has been rumbling ominously all evening so you put on extra coffee, set out a second cup on the counter, and wait for South.

You kiss her while the rain sheets down against the windows and for the first time in too long you feel alive, feel _real_ , feel like time is moving forward again. You both taste like coffee and cigarettes and cheap food, you both feel like you haven’t had human contact in too long.

When she pulls away from the kiss you hold onto her.

When she leaves you leave with her.

It’s ten in the morning in your apartment and the rain has stopped, the sun has come out. South lies in your arms in a messy pile of blankets, hair shining like gold in the ray of sunshine that peeks through your window, eyes shut and her face finally not pinched and angry. You brush her bangs from her forehead, press your lips there, and finally feel like you’re living again.

“I have.” You whisper, finally answering her question from weeks ago, months ago. “And it’s awful.”

She opens her eyes, more awake than you thought she was. Slides closer to you and grips onto your t-shirt. “Does it get better?”

You consider it, shake your head. “It changes. Who…?”

“My brother.” She licks her lips. “Twin.” Her fingers tighten against your shirt. “Car accident.” Her knuckles are white. “In the rain.”

Oh.

You understand.


End file.
